


Live Better, Work Union

by Kyra



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ensemble Cast, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-20
Updated: 2007-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-29 11:38:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/319479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyra/pseuds/Kyra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know, this would not happen if we had a union. Season two a/u.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Jim/Pam, Pam/Roy, ensemble. Season two a/u -- starts after Boys and Girls and eventually diverges from canon in obvious ways.
> 
> I wrote almost all of this story in 2006, in the summer hiatus after season two, and then didn't post it because I wasn't sure how to end it. Um, a lot of the ideas seem less fresh now, but oh well. Totally the longest fic I've ever written, fwiw! Thanks to annakovsky for beta-ing, and everyone who was awesome and encouraging.

_Jan: Excuse me. I'm told that there's been some interest in forming a union, and that Michael supported it. Obviously he's not a friend of yours, because he didn't tell you the facts. So let me. If there is even a whiff of unionizing in this branch, I can guarantee you the branch will be shut down like that. They unionized in Pittsfield, and we all know what happened in Pittsfield. It will cost each of you a fortune in legal fees and union dues, and that'll be nothing compared to the cost of losing your jobs. So I would think long and hard before sacrificing your savings and your futures just to send a message. (Boys and Girls)_

 

Roy jogs down the stairs with his keys jingling and Pam puts her finger in the margin of her book to mark her spot, before glancing up.

"Hey babe," he says, "I'm going to that meeting Darryl set up with the AFL people or whatever. Don't wait up, okay?"

"Okay," says Pam, already looking back at her book. "Have fun." He bends down and kisses her cheek quickly -- he smells like aftershave and his cheek is cool and she waves absently over her shoulder as he goes out the front door.

**

Things are kind of weird at work lately. There was that whole thing with Jim and Michael and what he told her about the booze cruise, and now she feels strange doing wedding things in front of Jim. It just seems... rude, somehow. Like, it must be strange for him to watch a girl he used to... Anyway. She just tries not to. She likes when she doesn't have to think about it, when she's not stressed out about whose feelings will get hurt if they're left off the guest list, and he's not avoiding meeting her eyes.

On a Wednesday he comes up and leans over her desk.

"Hey," he says, voice low, "um, fyi, Phyllis put cookies in the kitchen," he jerks his head in that direction, "so you might want to stock up before word gets out."

She grins.

"Oh, you're stockpiling desserts now?"

"Heck yeah," he says. "Do I need to remind you of the brownie incident of '05? When she made the mistake of telling Kevin about them first?"

She's laughing.

"Okay, okay," she says, "I'm coming."

"Okay," he says, "but keep your head down. This is high priority reconaissance."

He holds the kitchen door open so she has to duck under his arm to get in, and they take three cookies each. Michael's in his office with the door shut, on the phone with corporate, so she sits on Jim's desk to eat them and they try to convince Dwight that being allergic to peanuts is all in his head.

**

The dress is already on layaway, and she thinks it's the right one. No, she knows it's the right one. But she still wants her mom to see it, needs her seal of approval before she can write a check that big.

Her mom drives down on a Saturday, and they get pancakes down the street and then Pam drives them over to the store. The woman knows her when she goes in now, and smiles wryly.

"One more time, huh?" she says, and goes to get the dress out of the back. Pam makes her mom wait outside the dressing room so she can't see it until it's on. The fabric is white and cool and heavy and Pam smoothes her hands over her stomach before pushing out through the door.

"Oh," her mom says. "Oh, honey. Oh."

Pam smiles, ducks her head, looks back up.

"You like it?"

"You look so beautiful," her mom says, and the store owner crosses her arms and leans on the door frame.

"That's what I've been trying to tell her."

"Oh," says her mom again, then laughs, teary. "You're all grown up. This means I must be really old."

Pam laughs and feels her face getting red.

"Stop it, you're going to make me cry."

"Turn around," her mom says, and Pam does, the dress moving with her.

**

She's just finishing taping up the WELCOME DAUGHTERS sign for tomorrow when Jim wanders up to her desk, bag slung across his chest.

"Nice," he says. "Good old dot matrix."

"Yeah, it's classy," she says, bending over to shut down her computer.

"You all set?" he asks and she nods, gathering up her things.

They're the last ones out and he waits while she turns out the lights and locks the door.

He's trying to convince her she should skip work tomorrow and tell Michael it's because she's going to visit her mom's office for Take Your Daughter To Work Day when they push outside. It's cold and she shivers, rummaging in her purse for her hat. Jim's smirking at her when she pulls it on.

"Nice pom-pom," he says and she glares.

"I hate you." They stand awkwardly for a moment in the dusky parking lot -- the streetlights are just starting to come on.

"Okay, well," she says, taking a backwards step toward the warehouse. "I have to go meet Roy."

"Oh, yeah, definitely," he says. "I'm just gonna--" He indicates his car with his shoulder.

"Okay, cool," she says. "See you tomorrow."

"Yep, bye," he says. "See you tomorrow."

Pam picks her way across the icy parking lot toward the warehouse. Jim's car is just pulling out of the gates when she opens the door and goes inside. Normally she doesn't like the warehouse much, but tonight it seems bright and warm. She scans the floor as she walks down the stairs -- Roy's over by the forklift, talking to Darryl and Lonny.

"Hey, babe," he says, when she comes up beside him, and they go on talking while she fiddles with the buttons on her coat.

"The big issue now," Darryl is saying, "is getting the money to have a lawyer on retainer, so if they try to come at us legally, we're ready. Line of defense."

"Yeah, yeah," Roy says. "For sure." He checks his watch, then glances over at Pam. "Hey, I gotta take off."

"All right, man," Darryl says. "We can talk about it more tomorrow."

"Sure," says Roy, peeling the velcro open on his support belt. "See you guys later."

"See you, man," says Lonny, and then Roy finds his coat and they go.

On the way to the truck, Pam almost slips on a patch of ice and Roy grabs her arm, steadying her automatically.

"Careful," he says absently, and she goes around to the passenger side.

"Hey, what do you want for dinner?" she asks, as he starts the truck.

"Oh, I don't care. Whatever you want," he says, putting a hand on the back of her seat so he can twist around to look out the back while he backs the truck up.

**

The Rite-Aid cashier gives Pam and Jim a weird look when they roll the cart up. Pam helps unload the M&Ms and DVD and fabric softener (she gives Jim another bemused look) and Michael's terrible aftershave but stops with the Cup o' Noodles. She puts one on the belt, then looks from the rest to the cashier.

"There are, um--" she looks at Jim, but he has his eyebrows raised like he's trying not to smile. "There are 70," she says, and the cashier punches it in.

"Nice, Pam," he says as they're pushing the cart full of bags away. "Lying in public."

"I didn't see you about to volunteer," she says, and he grins, pausing by the door to slide his credit card back in his wallet.

"Oh, did you want me to--" she gestures toward it and he shakes his head.

"Nah," he says. "Don't worry about it. It's always been a goal of mine to spend that much on meals in cups, actually."

The bags take up the whole trunk and backseat of Jim's car. Pam twists around in the passenger seat to look back at them as Jim pulls on his seatbelt and starts the car.

"How long do you think it'll take him to eat it all?" she asks.

"Hard to say," Jim says, glancing up at the rearview mirror as he pulls out of the space. "Three, four days?"

She laughs and turns forward in the seat as he shifts the car into drive. Jim's car smells nice and they're missing work in the middle of a Wednesday and she doesn't even care. His radio's on and she reaches over to play with the dial without asking. He's watching her when she glances up and he shakes his head.

"Seriously, no manners."

She rolls her eyes and flicks through all the pre-programmed stations to see what he has. Number 6 is WQFM, All Oldies All the Time, and she laughs delightedly.

"Jim!" she says. "Why didn't you tell me you're a soccer mom? An old soccer mom?"

"Hey!" he says. "Sometimes there's nothing else on."

She raises her eyebrows, unimpressed, and he grins over at her.

**

Roy comes up to the office just before five on Friday.

"Hey, babe," he says. "Can you leave yet? We wanna go to Poor Richard's."

Pam glances over at Jim, who's looking at his computer screen.

"Um, yeah," she says. "Just give me a minute."

Roy waits around, leaning on the counter, while she finds her purse and writes herself a Post-It to remind Michael he has yet another conference call with corporate on Monday. There are rumors flying lately in weird ways that she only sort of catches. Yesterday Michael came out of his office after one of the phonecalls, looking pale and twitchy and asked to talk to her. She caught Jim's eye on the way in -- neither of them smiled.

"Hey, um, Pam," Michael said as she closed the door behind her. "Do... you... and... Roy... ever...." Pam braced herself. "That is, do you think he would-- I mean, would you--"

"What?" Pam said.

"What do you know about unions?" Michael said quickly and Pam felt simultaneously relieved and nervous.

"Um," she said. "Nothing?"

"Really?" said Michael, looking at her directly now. "Are you sure about that? Because there are all these rumors flying around and corporate is really not happy and it would be really great if you could just mention to Roy that--"

"Maybe you should try talking to Roy about it," Pam said and Michael exhaled in a huge huff.

"No, that would-- they'd just--" He looked down at his desk, picking at the edge of his blotter. "Fine, okay, thank you, Pam. You can just..." He gestured to the door without looking up, and she ducked out fast.

Jim was on the phone but looked up when she came out, shutting the door behind her, and she shrugged and forced a smile, shaking her head.

Now, today, Roy's pushing up off the counter as she turns off the light on her desk. She looks over at Jim again, and he half waves as she walks out around the counter. She waves back and follows Roy out the door and downstairs to where Darryl and Madge and some of the guys are waiting.

"Friday, all right," says Roy, and they all go to the bar.

Pam's halfway through her third beer, bored, wondering whether she can take off and leave Roy to get a ride with Darryl, wondering why she never sees anyone she knows here, when she tunes back in to what they're talking about.

"And of course Pam will sign," Roy's saying, and she frowns.

"What?" she says, and Darryl looks at her face and stops talking.

They fight. They fight like they always do when he just assumes she'll want to do something just because he does, in the parking lot outside and all the way home, and then in the kitchen, while she slams cupboard doors.

"No, Roy," she says, setting a plate down hard. "I just don't want to. I don't -- I don't want to get in the middle of things, okay?"

"Look, whatever," Roy says. "Either you care about what we're doing or you don't."

She sighs heavily.

"It's not that I don't--"

"Do you even know what that clown Michael makes in a year?" Roy says, gesturing in some vague direction. "More than both of us put together, Pam. That's not right."

Pam's head is pounding, like she's getting a hangover without really having been drunk, and she's starving and she knows she should care more, but she just doesn't. She leans against the counter and rubs her forehead.

"Can't we talk about this later?" she says, and looks up when she's met with silence.

"Fine," Roy says. "I'm going out."

**

Pam's still awake when Roy comes home. She lies in bed and listens to him shut the door and toss his keys in the tray and kick his shoes into the closet and come quietly up the stairs. The room is dark, but her eyes have adjusted enough to see him when he comes in. He's just wearing his undershirt and work pants, and he sits down heavily on his side of the bed. His back is to her but she knows he knows she's awake. Pam blinks up into the darkness and watches his shoulders rise and fall as he breathes, before she finally reaches out and touches the small of his back.

"I was thinking," she says, "For Memorial Day weekend maybe we could both take some sick days and go back up to that place in the Poconos? They might still have rooms if we called now."

Roy doesn't say anything, but his shoulders slump a little, and then he lies down on his side of the bed, turning on his side to face her. He touches her hip, her back, and then her feet are brushing up against his legs and they're kissing.

Roy rolls them over, slides his hands up across her stomach, her breasts, and she lifts her arms to help him pull off her tanktop. She's always liked how tall he is, how big his hands are; it makes her feel safe, turns her on. He's kissing her neck now and she shivers with how good it is, that tingling in her hands starting, and she makes a little noise and pulls him up to kiss her again, hands in his hair. Headlights from passing cars sweep across the ceiling and he's slipping his fingers under the hem of her pajama pants, making her feel good, making her feel.

**

"Hey, how was your weekend?" Jim asks on Monday morning.

"Good," she says. "Short. How was yours?"

"Not bad," he says. "Hey, I texted you Friday night, did you get it? I think my phone might be on the fritz."

"Oh!" she says. She can't believe she forgot -- as soon as he says it, she remembers it buzzing on the bedtable as Roy moved inside her, hooked a hand under her knee. She can feel herself blushing. "Yeah, I did, sorry, I was. Asleep."

"Oh," he says. "Okay."

"Okay?" she says.

"Yeah," he says. "Um, I'm gonna go get some coffee."

**

Thursday afternoon, Pam sneaks out while Jim's in the bathroom, grabs her coat and runs down to the warehouse.

"Hey," says Roy, surprised, when he sees her.

"Hey," she says, "Can I have the keys? I have to run to the store."

"Sure," he says. "They're in my locker. You know the combination."

"Thanks!" she says and stands on her toes to kiss him quickly.

She goes through two yellow lights on her way there and back, so as not to use up all of her break, and the can of Coke is cold in her lap.

She tosses the keys back to Roy on the way out that evening.

"Hey, what did you have to get, anyway?" he asks as she rolls down the window.

"Oh," she says. "Tampons," then wonders why she lied. Well, it's not a lie, she did get tampons too. The other reason would just be way too hard to explain. He wouldn't really care anyway.

**

Pam's aunt, the one who works at a travel agency, sent them a giant envelope stuffed so full of travel brochures for the honeymoon it could barely fit in the mailbox. Pam's spent a lot of time in the evenings sorting through them; she kind of wants to go everywhere, but there's money to think about, and time, and places Roy wouldn't want to go, and places she especially wants to go, so the no-pile gets bigger and the maybe-pile gets smaller.

They've been going back and forth on Hawaii vs. Mexico for weeks now. Pam's heard that you can swim under actual waterfalls in Hawaii, which sounds way cooler than going somewhere she doesn't even speak the language, but one of Roy's friends went to Cancun for spring break one year and came home proclaiming it awesome.

"Mexico sure is going to be sweet, huh, Pam?" Roy says, squeezing her shoulder when they're out with people, and Pam rolls her eyes. She keeps leaving the Hawaii brochure on Roy's bedtable or in the visor of the truck so it falls in his lap when he opens it.

"Very funny," he says, and tosses it on her lap. Pam bites her thumbnail and grins.

"Oh, hey," she says on Saturday afternoon, "I was looking at airfares to Hawaii at work the other day. They were looking pret-ty great. Just wondering, do you want an aisle seat or a window seat when I book them?"

Roy's watching some action movie on tv and it takes him a second to respond, frowning over at her.

"Look, I don't want to go to fucking Hawaii, okay?"

Pam's halfway through folding a towel and she freezes, looking at him.

"Pam--" Roy starts, when she puts it down and walks out of the room. "Come on, Pam, I'm sorry," he calls after her. She slams the bedroom door, hard.

**

Darryl and Roy and the rest of the warehouse guys sign the papers on a Monday. Pam knows because Roy makes her come down at lunchtime and they have beer in celebration and if nobody really looks at her, at least they don't mention that her name isn't on the sheet.

Roy's in a good mood on the way home, drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel.

"Hey!" he says. "What's the name of that new place you like? You wanna get dinner?"

"Oh!" she says, blinking. "Yeah, sure." Roy puts on the turn signal.

"I feel like we did something good today," he says, glancing over at her. "You know?" Pam smiles, and after a minute he reaches over and touches her knee.

There's a basketball game on the TVs at the restaurant, so Roy watches that while they eat. Pam chews and swallows and watches the commercials and flips her phone open and shut to see if she's gotten any messages.

"Hey," says Pam, on their way out. "You want me to drive?" His face is flushed from his drinks and he shrugs and digs in his pocket for the keys.

"Yeah, you'd probably better," he says, and she walks around to the driver's side and climbs up into the cab and that's another Monday over.

**

Jan shows up on Wednesday morning with about seven impressive looking men in black suits. She doesn't stop to say hello to Pam like she usually does.

"Michael," she says. "Conference room. Now."

This is bad, this is bad, this is bad is all Pam can think. She can feel Jim watching her. Inside the conference room, Michael gets very loud for a minute and then all the blinds click closed one by one.

The door opens after ten minutes and Michael comes out, followed by Jan and some of the men. She's never seen him look like this before, and Jim gives her a look as he turns his chair around.

"Um," he says, and has to try again louder. "Can I have everyone's attention, please. I, um, I have an announcement to make." His voice is shaky, and when he opens his mouth again, nothing comes out.

"Michael," says Jan.

"I can't, Jan," he says, and even from here Pam can see that his eyes are red. "I can't."

Jan steps forward and raises her voice.

"Due to the unionization of Dunder Mifflin Scranton, this entire branch is being shut down effective two weeks from today."

The place explodes into noise.

"WHAT?" says Dwight.

"A union?" Stanley says. "I did not join any union."

Jan has to raise her voice more to be heard over everyone.

"It's come to the attention of the corporate offices that the majority of the organizers are currently located in the warehouse, but this company has a strict, well-publicized no tolerance policy for organized labor. It's not the Dunder Mifflin way and, and will not be accomodated."

"Why are we being punished for something the warehouse did?" Angela asks loudly.

"Legally there's no distinction between warehouse and the office," Jan says. "And members of the warehouse team were not the only ones to sign the incorporation statement."

Everyone gets suddenly quiet, glancing around at each other, trying to figure out who's to blame.

"Live better, work union!" says Creed from his corner, and the room explodes again. Pam sits very still behind her desk.

Dwight and Michael are both talking frantically and simultaneously at Jan, Stanley is grumbling loudly that this had better not affect his retirement plan, Phyllis is crying, and Oscar is repeating over and over that he cannot believe this.

Jim is looking straight at her.

**

It's a bizarre day. Pam walks out at four because she can't see a reason to stay and sits on the curb and calls her mom and cries. After she hangs up she walks over to the warehouse, where everyone is standing around outside looking as shell-shocked as she feels. She knows Jan and Michael and the suit men went down to the warehouse afterward and she heard Michael's lock click after he came back.

Pam finds Roy and goes to stand by him without saying anything.

"This is fucked up, man," says Lonny, like it's the 500th time he's said it. "They can't do this to us. Can they?" No one answers him.

"I want to go home," Pam says, low and shaky, and Roy looks at her.

"Yeah," he says, and they leave without saying goodbye.

"What are we going to do now?" she says when they get home and he spreads his arms wide, then lets them drop.

"Hell if I know," he says, too loudly, and she just stares at him till he closes his eyes and shakes his head.

"We'll figure something out, okay?" he says, and takes a step in her direction, pulls her toward him. Pam presses her face into his shirt, breathes in the smell of detergent and sweat and tries to let this make her feel okay.

**

Pam gets up and goes to work in the morning because she doesn't really know what else to do, and Jan did say two weeks. Roy goes too, silent and dark-eyed, knuckles white around the steering wheel.

Upstairs everyone looks like variations of living death. Phyllis's eyes are still red and Kevin's not wearing a tie and Dwight looks like he didn't sleep at all. Ryan looks strangely cheerful.

Pam turns on her computer and keeps her head down and tries to think about what to do. What to do what to do. She goes to monster.com and looks at exactly three job listings before she's so depressed she has to close the browser. When she looks up, Jim's there.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey," she says.

"So how are you enjoying the weirdest week of the century thus far?" he asks and her laugh surprises her, short and forceful.

"Well, um," she says. "I..."

"Hey," he says. "Do you wanna get out of here?"

"What?" she says, startled.

"I don't know about you, but I plan on taking some very long lunches this week," he says. She looks at her computer clock.

"It's 10:00!"

He looks at her.

"So, yeah," she finishes, and switches the phone to voicemail.

Jim's car is still clean, still smells good. There are no Cup o' Noodles in the backseat, so she goes through his glove compartment.

"Oh my God," he says, turning out of the parking lot. "You have absolutely no respect for privacy, do you?"

"Bite me," she says, and when she looks up, he looks strange, but only for a second. She piles the contents of his glove compartment on her lap to see it all better. The car manual, insurance papers, a flashlight; boring. Three Taco Bell napkins and a bent straw in its wrapper, which she tucks in the door compartment. A pad of paper with directions scribbled in it, a sealed, unmarked Hallmark envelope and two CDs missing their cases: The Velvet Underground and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. She piles it all back in and clicks the compartment shut with her knee.

"Make any thrilling discoveries?" he asks.

"In your car?" she says. "Not likely."

He makes a show of clutching his heart.

"Pam!" he says. "I lead the exotic, high adventure life of a paper salesman. How can you think that's boring?" Then he stops like he realizes what he said. "Or, well, I guess soon I get to live the exotic, high adventure life of the unemployed."

"Where are we going?" she asks, like he didn't say anything. He's taking a left and she only vaguely knows where they are.

He shrugs.

"Not a clue."

"Cool," she says, and leans her head on the window. After a while, she leans over and turns the radio on. It's playing that one bad day song from American Idol and she turns it up, giving Jim a look that dares him to make a comment, but halfway through, the irony gets to be too much and she changes the station.

"Hey, are you hungry?" he says after a while.

"I don't know, am I?" she says.

"Burgers?" he asks.

"Ooh, yes, yes," she says, and he grins and puts on his blinker.

They both get burgers and milkshakes and by the time they get back to the office it's almost 1 and Pam feels so much better she's able to make it through the rest of the day of pointed glares from Angela, doubtlessly intended for Roy.

**

By the next day, people from corporate have descended on the office to supervise the dismantling of an entire business. There's a whole schedule of which managers will be coming in from different branches to take over various segments of the sales base. Dwight scoffs.

"Yeah, right, like people in Scranton are gonna want to order their paper from Albany." For once Pam agrees with him.

At lunch Kelly comes up and slumps tragically across Pam's counter.

"Ohmigod, Pam," she says. "This is totally crazy. Can you even believe it? Like, last night I was watching My Super Sweet 16, but I couldn't even pay attention because I kept thinking about this. You know?"

"Um," Pam says.

"And I sit back there by Toby and I mean everyone is coming back there to bitch at him and they're all yelling and crying and it's just super stressful."

"Oh man, poor Toby," says Pam.

"Yeah," Kelly says. "So what are you going to do??"

Pam looks down at her desk.

"Um, I don't know yet," she says.

"Yeah, me neither," says Kelly. "At least you have Roy to help out with bills and stuff."

Pam looks up at her.

"Oh," says Kelly. "Right."

**

Roy's quieter and quieter in the evenings. Apparently Lonny and Madge have already started looking for work and the job market is bad and they're having trouble explaining why they're out of a job in the first place.

"Darryl says we should all put down his phone number for a reference," Roy says during a Pepsi commercial. "Bypass those corporate assholes."

"Mmhmm," says Pam, looking at the TV Guide.

"Too bad you can't do that," he says and she looks up, feels suddenly present in her body, in this situation again.

"No," she says, and after a moment he reaches over and rests his hand on her foot without looking at her while he changes the channel.

**

After a little while it gets easier. The clock radio goes off at 6:45 and Pam stumbles out of bed and thinks that soon she won't have to do this anymore. She puts on her same boring work clothes and thinks about not having to wear them every day. She pushes the elevator button and counts down in her head, how many more times she'll have to do this. She tries really hard not to count how many weeks it is till rent is due.

**

On the weekend they go over to Roy's brother's house.

"Aunt Pam!" says Caitlin and flings herself at Pam's legs as soon as they're inside.

"Hey there!" says Pam and Roy grabs Caitlin from behind and flings her over his shoulder while she screams and kicks.

"Watch out, Roy," says Pam loudly. "In a few years she'll be big enough to do that to you."

"Is that true?" says Roy. He sets Caitlin down on the floor. "How tall are you now?" Caitlin presses her hand to the top of her own head, then holds it out to show him. "Holy cow," says Roy, and Pam smiles.

Everyone knows about the firings, of course, but they avoid talking about it while they eat. It's just barely warm enough to barbecue, so that's what they do. Pam eats her chicken and watches the kids run around, thinks about what it would be like to have a yard like this, a house like this.

"Hey, Pammy," says Kenny, like only people who've known her since she was fifteen do. "Toss me a Coke?"

Pam lobs him one underhand from the cooler beside her and he catches it easily.

It's only afterward, when she's helping Lisa wash the dishes that it comes up.

"So what are you two going to do?" Lisa says, with no preamble.

Pam shrugs, and concentrates on drying the fork in her hand.

"We're still trying to figure it out. Everything happened so fast."

"Yeah," says Linda. "I don't know what we'd do if even one of us got laid off. The mortgage and the kids and everything." She's quiet for a minute, spraying down the sink. "What about the wedding?"

Pam looks up at her, then away again.

"I don't know," she says.

**

The last day of work is warm and sunny. Pam thinks about wearing jeans but puts on a skirt and her blue-striped shirt, her same old black shoes.

Michael bought Munchkins and is crying again. It's been a teary fortnight. Pam rolls her eyes and turns on her computer. The office is weirdly empty with so much stuff packed up, and still one or two corporate types that she thinks have something to do with accounting, waiting to kick them out. After a while Phyllis starts going around exchanging e-mail addresses with people who'll give theirs out.

"No," says Angela, and stares down Phyllis until she goes away. Pam gives Phyllis an extra nice smile and writes down her cell phone number too. She asks what Phyllis is going to be doing now.

"Well, Bobby's receptionist just quit," says Phyllis, and Pam's stomach does something confusing -- excited and horrified -- does she want...? "So I'm going to be doing that for a little while, I guess," Phyllis finishes, and Pam gives her another smile through the wash of disappointed relief.

"Oh, good," she says. "Well ... good luck. With everything."

Michael comes out of his office just before noon and makes a tearful speech about how he really really really hopes they can all still be friends, like the family that they are, and then announces that he ordered pizza. It turns out his corporate credit card's already been shut off so when it arrives everyone has to pool their cash to pay the delivery guy.

Jim pushes up from his desk, loops around the group where Dwight is counting out change and taps her desk with his knuckles.

"Come on," he says, without pausing, and she follows him without looking back.

He goes up to the next floor, then around the corner to the ladder to the roof, and stands back to let her climb up first.

When she comes out of the hatch she has to squint because it's so bright. She steps away from the opening and watches Jim pull himself up and through. The sky is blue and clear and bright and curves over the building from horizon to horizon.

Pam waits for him to say something, but he just puts his hands in his pockets and wanders around the roof, kicking bits of gravel, so she goes over to the railing, leans over it. The parking lot looks small from up here, all their cars in neat, boring rows. There's a breeze and she shivers a little, wishing she'd brought a sweater. In the far distance she can see sunlight glinting off the windshields of cars on the highway.

Jim comes up beside her and bends over to rest his elbows on the railing, looking down at the parking lot, too. Pam's chest feels tighter and tighter and it suddenly all seems so real: that they'll never do this again, any of it. She'll go off and get a new job somewhere, and so will he -- maybe he'll even move somewhere -- and maybe they'll keep in touch for a while, but when all's said and done he's just her work friend, right? And in five hours they won't even be that anymore.

"Here's the thing," Jim says suddenly, still looking down off the edge of the building, then looks up at her and stops. Pam's crying silently, hand over her mouth, not looking at anything.

"Pam," he says, straightening up, then looks lost. Pam turns her face away, wiping her tears.

"I'm sorry," she says, "I'm sorry. This is so stupid. We're, like, free, right?" She tries a watery smile. "I don't know why I'm being so ...." She trails off and takes a deep breath. "What were you saying?"

It's Jim's turn to look away.

"Oh," he says. "Um. Nothing."

Pam laughs, choking on it a little.

"What are we going to do now?" she says and when she glances up he's watching her with a steady, inscrutable look that makes her start babbling. "Maybe we'll get, um, that prisoner thing where you can't live outside the bars. Like the guy in Shawshank Redemption."

Jim chuckles and the moment eases.

"Yeah, maybe they should give us probation or something. Meet up once a week with Dwight and the cameras."

"Oh, he'd love that," says Pam. "He could tell us all about all the time he's been spending with the beets."

"Well, beets are very needy," Jim says.

Pam takes a deep breath and smiles, bounces a little on her toes, pretending like things are fine.

"Hey, what time is it?" she says, grabbing his wrist so she can see his watch. Not late enough.

"Hey, so," she says, as she lets his wrist drop. She carefully doesn't look at him, tries to keep her voice casual. "We can still hang out and stuff, right?"

"Yeah," he says quickly. "Yeah, of course." She looks up at him, squinting in the sun. "I mean, there's Thursday night Bingo, right?" he continues. "And competitive bowling, and the knitting club." She laughs and shakes her head, as he grins at her. "Oh, and I'm thinking of taking up beekeeping," he says. "If you wanna come along for that."

"Shut up," she says, but she's still smiling. It's hard to hold onto, though, because time still feels like it's running out. Things will be different, and yeah, her job sucks, but maybe she liked some things about it. She's no good at change.

She turns around like she's looking back at the parking lot so he won't see her starting to cry again. This is so stupid. She must be PMSing. It's too late though, because he reaches out and touches her shoulder, turning her back to face him.

"Hey," he says softly, frowning and she sniffles, the world's grossest noise.

"What?" she says, just as Jim reaches up to brush away her tears with his thumb. He just smears them all over her face, though, making her feel more soggy than ever.

She reaches up to wipe them off herself but Jim catches her hand in his. He tangles his fingers with hers even while he's using his other hand to tilt her chin up and lean in and kiss the corner of her mouth, just for a second. It could almost be a cheek kiss that missed.

He pulls back a little and Pam doesn't move, doesn't look up, doesn't breathe, and then he leans in and really kisses her.

Pam's pretty sure this is what a heart attack feels like. Jim is so close she can feel the heat from his body and he kisses really carefully, and she's kissing him back before she even thinks.

Then her brain catches up and she thinks, I should stop, I should stop, stop stop, but she's already here, so just one more second--

A car backfires somewhere below them and they jump apart, ridiculously. She almost wants to laugh but he's looking at her with these terrified eyes and she feels dizzy.

"Um," she says, and he doesn't look like he's even breathing. Pam realizes suddenly that she's twisting and twisting her ring -- her engagement ring. Her engagement. She feels a wash of guilt and takes a step back, then another.

"I have to go," she says, biting the inside of her lip so she won't cry again.

"Wait--" Jim says and she shakes her head and turns toward the hatch. She's halfway there when she feels Jim's hand on her arm. "Pam, wait," he says again. "I'm, um, I'm sorry. I didn't--" The wind is ruffling his hair and he looks so worried and she feels like there's a hole somewhere behind her heart.

With sudden wild clarity she knows what she's about to do, just before she reaches out and pulls on his collar. He takes a step toward her, surprised, and she stands on her toes to kiss him before he can say anything.

It only takes a second for him to bring his arms around her and she sighs just a little, sliding her hands down his chest. She can feel his heart pounding under her palm. His tongue brushes her lip and it sends a shiver down her spine that she knows means she has to stop immediately.

She pulls back, pushes him away, takes in a lungful of air. He's staring at her, looking shellshocked, and she doesn't feel much different.

"Oh, God," she says, bringing a hand up to cover her mouth. "Oh my God. I really have to go."

"Pam," Jim says. "No, wait, really." He holds his hands up in the air and takes two steps backwards. She'd laugh if she weren't so freaked out. Instead she backs up too, till her shoulders are against the wall of the roof access hatch, and her hands are behind her back.

Jim drops his hands and looks down, then back up at her, a hard look that makes Pam's stomach turn over.

"Remember the thing Michael told you?" Then he stops and shakes his head. "That's not what I mean. Um." Pam hadn't thought her heart could pound any harder, but it is. The wind blows her hair in her face and she pushes it back behind her ear.

"Here's the thing," says Jim, again. "You're right, this should be the best day ever." He laughs a little, turns his head to look out at the horizon. "I mean, no more Michael, no more Dwight, no more ever debating the merits of three-hole punch versus regular, if I'm lucky."

He looks down at the cement of the roof and Pam has to strain to hear him.

"It's just that, um. I don't care. I mean, I don't care about all that, if you're around. Because you're around."

"What?" says Pam in a small voice and he looks up at her.

"Pam," he says. "I'm-- it's not just a crush, Pam, and I'm not over it and. I didn't want you to leave without telling you."

Pam feels like she can't breathe, and she's crying again or still. It's like her whole life is falling apart at once.

"I, um. I can't... I can't deal with this right now."

"Right now?" he says.

"Um," she says. "I don't..." He's still staring at her and she's getting angry. That he's doing this now, today. That he lied to her.

"You lied to me," she says and he blinks. "In the kitchen, you said that you were... That it was--"

"I know," he says. He looks away.

Here's how she thought today would go: that it would be weird, but kind of a relief. That at the end of the day she'd hug him, and make him swear they'd keep in touch. Now she feels like she's lost him already, in a way she hadn't even expected. Nothing like this has ever happened to her.

"I'm going inside," she says in a small voice. He doesn't try to stop her this time.

**

Inside she has to blow her nose twice at her desk and when she looks in the bathroom mirror her eyes are red but nobody looks at her twice.

Oscar and Angela are carefully stacking the severance checks and Pam goes over to pick up hers and Roy's. Angela doesn't want to let her sign for his, but Oscar gives her a look and hands both envelopes to Pam. Angela huffs but doesn't say anything. Pam isn't going to miss Angela.

Jim comes back inside after twenty minutes and carefully doesn't look at her. Which is fine since she's not looking at him either and then Michael comes out with one last video for them all to watch. For once no one even grumbles on the way into the conference room.

**

At the end of the day she rides down in the elevator with Phyllis and Toby and Ryan and Oscar and Jim. Roy's waiting outside by the door, and he shifts his weight as Phyllis hugs Pam.

"Well, bye guys," says Oscar, and Toby mumbles a goodbye.

"Bye," Jim says, and he's looking at her when he says it.

"Bye," says Pam. "Um, later."

**

Pam doesn't set the alarm for the next morning, but she still wakes up at 7, like her body's programmed. There's spring sunlight streaming through the blinds, way too bright, and Roy is snoring beside her.

When pushing her face into the pillow and trying to remember what she was dreaming about doesn't work, she rolls over on her side and looks at him. He's stubbly, drooling into his pillow, and she can smell his morning breath from here. Asleep he looks younger, looks -- if not quite like the Roy she knew in high school, at least like the guy who used to come crash at her dorm in college when her roommate was out of town. She only had the dorm-issued single bed, and they had to sleep so close she'd wake up boiling hot and kick off the covers, lie there listening to him breathe, wishing the weekend wouldn't end, that he could stay over forever.

It's a weird memory to have. She hasn't thought about it in a long, long time.

**

It's like the whole world's upside down; she doesn't work at Dunder Mifflin. And Jim--

She needs to stop thinking about it. She can't stop thinking about it.

**

Pam comes downstairs in jeans -- the novelty of not having to wear work clothes still hasn't worn off all these days later. The phone number for Ryan's temp agency is tucked in the corner of her mirror upstairs and every morning she tells herself today's the day she'll call, if she doesn't hear back on any of her resumes. She still hasn't called.

Roy's by the front door, back from visiting Kenny at the construction site to see if there are any job openings, maybe meet with the foreman. It's strange to see him wearing a jacket and tie, like he's someone else, like she's engaged to someone who works in an office. He's standing in the dark hallway, looking through the mail, and she finishes pulling her hair back into a ponytail as he looks up at her.

"Anything good?" she says, trying to keep her voice light.

"Bills," he says, tossing an envelope onto the table. "Bills, bills," he adds two more. "Wedding stuff." He drops three RSVP envelopes and she reaches around him to grab them.

"Oh, more RSVPs," she says, and he puts a hand on her wrist.

"Yeah," he says. "Um, about the wedding." Pam stops with the envelopes in her hand and can feel her face going stony.

"What?" she says.

"Look, Pam," he says. "You know we can't afford it right now. How are we going to pay for everything? We don't even have jobs."

"My parents..." she starts and he shakes his head.

"Your parents already gave us as much as they could, and so did mine. And we've got, what, the whole VFW hall to pay for still, right?"

"We already put down the deposit," she says.

"Yeah, like 10%," he says. "And everything else, all that other stuff."

"I can't believe you're doing this," she says and he sighs heavily. Three years, they've been engaged, and he's still not her husband. She's still not his wife. The words don't even seem real.

"I'm not the bad guy here," he says. "What do you want me to do, make money appear out of thin air? We just need to take some time, save some money. Get married next summer or something."

Pam turns around abruptly and walks into the kitchen. She looks down at the envelopes in her hand: one from her mom's sister, one from Roy's cousin, one with no return address. Roy comes in behind her.

"Pammy," he says. "Come on, don't be like this." He touches her elbow and she jerks away from him.

"Don't," she says. "Just... don't."

"Look," he says. "Darryl knows a guy who can maybe find work for me, and you can keep looking at the want ads and stuff, and then we can figure things out."

This shouldn't be this hard. She shouldn't have to fight for everything. She's so tired of fighting every step of the way.

She carefully doesn't look at him but her voice still comes out all trembly.

"Maybe we shouldn't get married at all." There's a pause.

"You don't mean that," he says. "You're just upset."

She looks up at him.

"No," she says, and oh, god, the way he's looking at her.

**

Pam's phone starts ringing from somewhere deep inside her purse, and she has to hop off the stool in her mom's kitchen and rummage for three rings before she finds it. 'Jim' says the caller ID, and she doesn't have time to process that, because the call's about to go to voicemail.

"Hey!" she says kind of breathlessly.

"Uh... hey!" he says, and she feels herself blush. Stupid caller ID.

"What's up?" Pam says. Her mom is watching her and she gives her an apologetic smile and turns away.

"Not much," Jim says. "How's it going?"

"Not too shabby," she says, and then makes a face of herself. She wanders out of the kitchen as casually as she can. "How are you enjoying your life of leisure?"

"It's been, uh, very educational," he says. "For instance, did you know daytime tv is really, really terrible?"

Pam laughs, making her way toward the living room window.

"Oh, please," she says. "You know you love Oprah."

She can hear the smile in his voice.

"Yeah, you're onto me," he says. "She's just so inspirational."

Pam smiles and turns away from the window to plop into the ancient, ratty armchair her dad won't let her mom get rid of because it's so comfortable. This feels good, just them, talking. Her and Jim, just like always, no reason to freak out, right?

"So, uh," he says, and his voice sounds a little different. "I was thinking of heading out to Barnes and Noble tomorrow to get some non-Oprah reading material. If you wanted to come along."

"Oh!" she says.

"I mean, I hear they also sell chai lattes, if you're not into the whole 'being literate' thing." Pam laughs, shifting her grip on her phone.

"Shut up," she says. "I read books." She turns sideways in the chair, pulling her feet up. "Yeah, um, no, I'd love to, but I'm actually out of town right now."

"Oh!" Jim says.

"Yeah," says Pam. "Just, uh, at my mom's."

"Oh, wow," he says. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bug you."

"No, no," she says, "it's totally fine." She feels like maybe she should explain, but she can still see her mom out of the corner of her eye, puttering around the kitchen, and everything that's happened still feels way too raw to talk about.

If she tells Jim -- when she tells Jim -- she wants to be sure she's not going to cry again talking about it. Needs to be able to think without remembering the long night of fighting with Roy, how he'd cried, how he and Kenny looked at her when they'd come by to start moving his stuff out. The moment before all that when she'd been washing the dishes, thinking about who'd get the tv and she started crying because she suddenly realized she'd kind of already made a decision. How she thinks this is right but she needs to be able to figure out what it really means.

"Yikes," Jim says. "Okay, I guess I'm on my own."

"Sure you can manage it?" she says.

"Yeah," he says. "I'll do my best."

"Well, maybe, um, raincheck?" she says, and she can hear him smile again.

"Yeah, totally."

**

What's really weird is that occasionally Pam catches herself looking for the cameras. Really routine stuff she hadn't noticed she'd been doing at work, like sneaking a look around when she's about to eat something messy or looking up embarrassed when she's laughing to herself about something. It's strange not to see them out of the corner of her eye, strange not to have someone sit her down every day and ask her how she is, what's up with her life, what she thinks of whatever Michael did today, whether she wants kids, whether she knows if Jim wants kids--

Looking back, a lot of things are sort of starting to fall into place, in really obvious, embarrassing ways.

There's a message on Pam's voicemail when she gets out of the supermarket and its weird no-cellphone-reception zone. The documentary producers, hoping her last few weeks have been all right, asking her to come in and do one last follow-up interview next week, just a quick five or ten minutes. There's only one time-slot left when she calls back, so she shrugs and takes it.

**

Pam locks the car door and walks across the parking lot feeling weirdly nervous. At least she doesn't see Michael's car. Though actually she's already feeling kind of nostalgic for his monologues about its superior ability to stun and impress the residents of Scranton.

The production team has moved to a dingy office on the second floor of a strip mall, which is weird since she always kind of thought of them as exotic outside observers of their boring office world. Not co-inhabitants.

When she pushes in through the upstairs door, she sees Meredith in the far corner and the back of Kevin's head through an open door down the hall, facing a camera. Roy's in a chair against the wall to her right.

He looks up when she comes in and doesn't say anything. Just looks at her, with no expression at all, and Meredith is starting to look at them strangely, so Pam sits down beside him, before she can think about it.

"Hi," she says, and he blinks and looks away, over at Meredith, till she stops watching them.

"Hey," he says after a moment, without looking back at her.

Pam is rubbing the palms of her hands up and down on the knees of her jeans. This is so, so weird.

"How, um, how are you?" she says and he gives her a look, but then just exhales a little and shrugs.

"Okay," he says, and they sit listening to the ticking of the clock on the far wall.

"How are you?" he says after a minute and Pam almost jumps.

"Um, fine," she says, and he nods.

"How are--" she says just as he starts, "I was--" They stop and she laughs nervously.

"Sorry," she says. "Go ahead."

Roy's jaw is clenching and unclenching when she looks up at him, and she can feel the warmth of his body even though they're being very careful not to touch anywhere the two low chairs meet.

"I was going to say, um, remember to pay the water bill a few days early," he says. "They always try to jack us on late fees."

Pam looks back down at her hands.

"Right," she says. "Thanks."

A door shuts down the hall and they both look toward it in time to see Kevin coming out, along with one of the production assistants whose name Pam can't quite remember. Jess? How can she be forgetting already?

Possibly-Jess calls Meredith's name off a clipboard as Kevin comes over to them.

"Hey guys," he says. Roy just nods but Pam smiles up at him.

"Hey, Kevin," she says. "How are things?"

"Oh," says Kevin. "They're okay. I've had a lot of time to practice with my band." He smiles. "But then Stacy made me get a job at this accounting firm downtown." His smile fades and Pam presses her lips together.

"Well ... congratulations?" she says and he nods glumly before saying goodbye to them.

The waiting room is really quiet after that, in the supremely awkward way. When Pam looks down at where Roy's hands are splayed on his knees, it seems strange that there's no white patch of skin where a ring used to be, to match her own. ("Ten years?" her mother's friend Dotty had said when she was home. "Honey, that's not a breakup, that's a divorce.") She feels suddenly sad and desperate and terrified about what she's done. This thing she can't take back.

"How's Caitlin?" she asks, to distract herself, and he shrugs, a jerky motion. She can tell he's upset.

"Okay," he says. Pam nods and focuses on watching the second hand on the clock. Caitlin is starting kindergarten in the fall. Pam was going to give her her old Strawberry Shortcake lunchbox. Now she guesses she's not.

Someone's coming up the stairs and down the hall and she and Roy both watch the door open. It's Jim. His face shifts just a little when he sees them, but then it's gone like she imagined it.

"Hey!" he says, moving to sit across from them.

"Hey," says Pam. Roy nods.

"How's it going?" Jim says.

"All right," says Pam. It's weird to see him again, too -- he looks taller. He can't be taller.

"Man, it's early," says Jim and she nods. Roy isn't saying anything. Pam was wrong about before -- this is the most awkward moment of her life.

"This is taking forever," Roy finally mutters and launches himself out of his chair. He goes into the back of the office without knocking and when Pam looks over at Jim he's watching him go with eyebrows raised.

"Hey," she says, then realizes she's already said that. "I mean, um, what's up? What have you been doing?"

"Oh, you know," he says. "Saving babies from burning buildings. Turning time backwards. The usual."

She laughs.

"Yeah, that must keep you pretty busy."

"What about you?" he says. "How was your mom's?"

Pam looks down.

"Oh," she says. "Good."

There's a pause and when she looks up he's watching her. He glances away quickly, jiggling his knee, and suddenly all she can think about is that the last time they were alone, they--

Meredith comes out from the back shaking her head.

"Thank God that's over forever," she says, without pausing, then stops at the door. "What's the matter with him?" she says to Pam, jerking her head towards the back. Pam opens her mouth, but Meredith's out the door before she can say anything.

Jim looks at her questioningly, and Pam gives him a smile that feels fake.

"So, um, how's the job search going?" she asks, and he blinks and scratches at the back of his head. He's wearing jeans too, a t-shirt and sneakers, and it's so weird to see him in them instead of a tie, like he's practically a different person already.

"Okay," he says. "Uh, I had an interview yesterday."

"Oh, cool!" she says. "I think?"

He shrugs. "Yeah, I guess."

"Well, maybe--" she starts, but then the door opens again, and it's Dwight, who stops short when he sees them. Oh, yes. She glances back at Jim, and sees his eyes light up when he catches her look. Jim sits up just a little straighter.

"Hey, Dwight," he says, and Dwight frowns, but comes into the room.

"Jim," he says. "Pam." He sits down carefully three chairs down from Jim.

"Hi, Dwight," Pam says.

"I am actually really glad to see you, Dwight," Jim says, and Dwight gives him a suspicious look.

"You are? Why?"

"Well, uh, there's this guy who's moved into my neighborhood who's been acting kind of suspicious," Jim says, and Pam presses her lips together to keep a straight face. "He just wears kind of weird clothes, and there are always a ton of birds flying around his house. Man, I wish I could remember what kind."

"Owls," Pam says, making sure to look very serious. "I saw them too, the other day."

"Yes!" says Jim. "That's it, owls."

Dwight sits up straighter and half turns toward them in his chair.

"What?" he says. "Go on."

"Well, I don't know," Jim says, reluctantly. "Maybe it's nothing. I don't want to accuse people of anything."

"Jim, in this country, people are under suspicion until proven innocent," Dwight says. "I may need to report this to the sheriff's office."

"Okay, but, it's just that there was this really weird green light there the other night. And this loud noise that woke me up. I guess it could have been fireworks or something, but it just gave me this really funny feeling."

"Hold on," Dwight says, and pulls a steno pad and pen out of his back pocket. Jim gives Pam a look and Pam gives him one back and it's all she can do to keep from laughing.

By the time the PA comes out to get Pam for her interview, she's in the middle of telling Dwight about the weird thing she saw flying through the sky the other night that practically looked like a broomstick, but that's crazy, right? Jim throws her an amused look as she gets up to go, and picks up the thread, and it makes Pam's heart feel warm and right, listening to them go back and forth as she walks away.

Roy's coming down the hall toward her, and his face looks bleak, and the good feeling fades. Looking at him she feels a little like she might cry.

"Hey," she says, grabbing his hand. Ahead of her Jess stops and looks back at them, but Pam ignores it. Roy looks down at her hand and then back up at her.

"Pam--" he says warningly, and she shakes her head, trying to think of what to say that hasn't already been said.

"I'll see you around," she says, finally and his face softens a little.

"Yeah," he says. "Okay. Hey, um, good luck in there." He jerks his head back. "And with finding work and stuff."

"Yeah," she says. "You too." She means it and hopes it comes through.

She watches him walk away, his back, the way he shoves his hands in his pockets, everything about him so familiar, then turns back to Jess with a deep breath.

"Okay," she says. "I'm ready."

**

Jim walks across the parking lot with his head down, keys in one hand, and he doesn't see her till he's almost to his car. His steps falter almost imperceptibly when he looks up. Pam takes a deep breath and stays where she is, leaning against his car door with her arms folded. His interview was long but it's a nice day; she's been watching cars go by, watching Oscar pull up and walk inside on the other side of the parking lot, telling herself not to chicken out.

"Hey," she says, when he gets close enough.

"Hey," he says back, stopping in front of her.

"How'd it go?" she says. He shrugs.

"Same as ever," he says, and she nods, then tilts her head toward his hand.

"Those your keys?" she says, and he blinks and looks down at them.

"Um, yup," he says. Pam holds out her hand and raises her eyebrows, trying to act casual, trying to act like this is a normal thing. Like asking for his headphones or half his dessert at lunch. Her heart is racing a little, and he gives her a strange look, but then hands her the keys, fingers brushing her palm.

Pam pushes the unlock button while Jim walks around to the other side of the car. He slides into the passenger seat as she's tilting the rearview mirror down so she can see. She has to slide the seat all the way forward before she can reach the pedals. She can tell he's watching her, but she doesn't look over, just concentrates on starting the car, releasing the parking brake.

"So, um, did they tell you when it's gonna be on tv?" she asks as she pulls out of the parking space. "I forgot to ask." She didn't forget to ask. In a few months, probably, they said.

"Oh, yeah," he says. "This fall, I think."

"Cool," she says. "Ready for the paparazzi?" He laughs briefly.

"You know it."

She doesn't know where she's going, really. She just thought this would be easier if she were doing something. They were only a few blocks from work, so that's where she headed, but this definitely isn't where she wants to stop. As they drive by she glances up at the dark windows on the second floor. In some other universe they're in there working. Or not working, more likely.

Jim's looking at the same thing, and maybe it's because he's not watching her that she blurts it out.

"I'm not getting married," she says. She glances over just in time to see him turn toward her, then looks away again. She holds up her left hand, ring finger bare, without taking her eyes off the road. "See?"

She hears him inhale and she puts her hand down so she can put on the blinker.

"That's why I was at my mom's," she says. "Um, Roy moved out three weeks ago." Her voice is very even. "It's been... weird, I guess. I don't know."

"Pam," he says, sounding kind of strangled, and she shakes her head once, quickly.

"No, um," she says. "Let me-- I just wanted to.. um, tell you that I kind of lied too. When you told me... I mean, I did kind of think you had a crush on me. When I started. Because I kind of did, too." They're in a residential area now, rows of quiet houses with lawns and trees. She thinks they're kind of near his house, remembers driving to the barbecue all those months ago. "But, um, then it stopped being, like, this thing for my coworker and it was just ... you, you know?" She risks a glance over at him, then looks away quickly. She feels like maybe she's going to be sick.

"Anyway, um," she's losing the thread, running out of courage. "I just, uh, I just wanted to. Um. Tell you that." Her hands are all sweaty on the steering wheel.

"Can you stop the car?" he says, and she forgets not to look at him, he sounds so strange.

"Um, okay," she says. They're on a side street, trees casting leafy shadows on the asphalt, and she pulls onto the shoulder and cuts the engine. It's very quiet all of a sudden, quiet enough for her to hear the click of Jim's seatbelt as he unfastens it.

"Okay, wow," he says, shifting in his seat. "I kind of feel like I'm in high school."

She laughs, but it sounds brittle and nervous, and then she stops because Jim reaches out and unfastens her seat belt, too, and having to extricate her arm from the strap keeps her from thinking about how she feels like she might throw up.

"Hey," Jim says, and she looks at him and before she knows it she's laughing again, because this is so, so weird. That's how he kisses her, mid-laugh, and it cuts off in her throat, turns into a different noise entirely.

The nicest thing is how she keeps thinking she has to stop and then realizing she doesn't. Or, well. The second nicest thing.

She has to take a second to breathe when they do stop, and when she opens her eyes, Jim looks just about as dazed as she feels.

"... wow," he says, and she grins. Somehow her hands are on his chest, and his thumb is tracing patterns on her arm, just slipping under the sleeve of her t-shirt.

"Wow?" she says. "That's the best you can manage?"

"Well, further research might be required," he says. "If you want an in-depth assessment."

"Oh, really," Pam says. Their faces seem to be getting closer together.

"Yeah," he says, really softly, and then Jim, Jim-her-friend-from-work-Jim is kissing her again. Pam feels lightheaded in a way that's nothing but good.

"This is okay?" Jim asks when they stop again, looking kind of like he can't believe it. "This is good?" The sunlight in the car is all green from the trees, and she thinks she's maybe never smiled this much in her life.

"Yeah," Pam says. "This is good."


	2. Epilogue

Jim's had three job interviews; one he didn't hear back on, one he turned down, one he might -- maybe -- take. He tells Pam this after going out to lunch, as they're sitting on his couch, tv flickering on mute.

"I figured maybe I should try to do something I don't totally hate," he says, and Pam grins. It's weird being here. She likes it.

She doesn't ask him what he wants to do, because she hates that question. And it's Jim. She spent a week-and-a-half temping in an insurance office before the job ended; she's looking at job listings every day, sometimes even non-receptionist ones; she's thinking of taking an art class.

"Also maybe moving to Timbuktu," she tells him seriously.

"Wow," he says. "Yeah, I hear it's nice this time of year."

Jim's played poker with Toby once since the branch shut down, and Kelly called Pam to talk about something Mischa Barton did: "-- oh, and also I got a new job." The documentary crew asked both of them if they'd run into Creed; no one's seen or heard from him.

"It's so weird how, like, we're never all going to be in the same room again," Pam says. She doesn't say what she's thinking, how that was almost them, how they would have just been stories about old coworkers. Their lives going on and on, just like everyone else's is right now. On the other end of the couch, Jim rests his hand on her ankle, thumb against her pulse, and it makes Pam's heart twist. No one's ever touched her like that except Roy. It eases after a minute, and Jim's still there, still looking at her like he's kind of confused-but-pleased to find her in his living room.

He drives her back to her car way after dark. The June air's cooled off and it whips through his open windows, and through her hair when she kisses him again in the parking lot.

"I'll call you tomorrow," he says for the third time, and she smiles, unlocking her car. She feels dizzy, strange, elated. Different.

Jim stands in the parking lot and watches her go for at least as long as she can see him in her rear view mirror.

Pam opens her windows, too, lets the wind and night air rush through the car. The streets are quiet and the sky is dark and the world feels wide open.


End file.
